For Germany and Israel, a textbook case

By Jeffrey F. Barken/JNS.org

Click photo to download. Caption: Pictured in Leipzig, Germany, are members of the Israeli team that partnered with Germany to assess
how each country portrays the other’s history in school textbooks, for ages
12-18, and to make recommendations to improve future textbooks. Third from right, in back, is Dirk
Sawdowski, chairman of the German-Israeli Textbook Commission, and second from left, in back, is Dr.
Arie Kizel, the chairman coordinating the Israeli team. Credit: Courtesy Dr. Arie Kizel.

Almost 70 years
after the Holocaust and 50 years after Germany and Israel established
diplomatic relations, a textbook commission is shedding light on how the two
countries are promoting their sustained cultural and historical connection.

Dirk Sadowski, chairman of the German-Israeli
Textbook Commission, describes that there is a fundamental difference between
the German education system and the Israeli education system that “finds expression
in each country’s secondary and high school textbooks.”

“Although both
systems try to impart western and democratic values, the Israeli curriculum is
largely indebted to educational principles arising from the necessity of nation
building,” Sawdowski tells JNS.org. “German
textbooks, meanwhile, employ a very different, almost post-national reading of
history, which is, of course, a result of Germany’s problematic past.”

Germany and Israel’s school textbooks are
currently under review. Beginning in 2010, the German Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and the Israeli Ministry of Education teamed up to finance a survey of
their separate educational systems. Their task: assess how each country
portrays the other’s history in school textbooks, for ages 12-18, and make
recommendations to improve future textbooks. The survey also probes different
textbooks’ treatment of geography, political treaties and issues arising from
globalization. Special emphasis is placed on their comparative histories of the
Holocaust.

The project is ambitious. Teams in each country
have examined hundreds of texts, prepared comprehensive translations, and
labored to bridge significant cultural gaps.

“Before we could
begin it was necessary that we reconcile our methodologies,” Dr. Arie Kizel,
the chairman coordinating the Israeli team, tells JNS.org. “Every textbook is written and read in a cultural context.
Therefore we had to work together to filter biases and strategize how we
approached each text.”

Developing a fair and mutually agreeable survey
methodology wasn’t easy. Over the course of the past three years the two teams
hosted conferences in Braunschweig, Germany, and in Tel Aviv. University
professors, teachers, educators, and ministry experts were consulted. Their
scholarly debates led to a working strategy that brings the commission closer
to consensus.

Today, there are three groups of German and
Israeli researchers working under the aegis of the commission. Communication is
possible through simultaneous language translation.

“We decided to work
strictly bilingual,” Sadowski says, explaining the need to facilitate accurate
analysis, confronting the language barrier directly. “Of course, there are
things that get lost in translation. Hebrew is very concrete and
straightforward whereas German is much more abstract. Despite the slow pace of
translations, this is still more precise than using a third language, like
English.”

Another early obstacle confronted by the
commission involves textbook sample size.

“Since Israel is
significantly smaller than Germany and there is only one state-approved
curriculum, the Israeli team was able to survey all of the textbooks currently
being used in Israel,” Kizel says.

In Germany, however, educational matters are
administered differently among the country’s 16 federal states. There are also
diverse curricula for different school types. Textbook publishers, therefore,
try to adapt themselves to the different policies and curricula by publishing a
series of schoolbooks in a number of versions. Consequently, there are nearly
1,200 different textbooks in Germany, all relevant to the subjects being
surveyed, and the selection of texts varies depending on the region.

“We could never survey such a huge volume of
textbooks sufficiently,” Sadowski admits. “Instead we picked out five federal
states: Bavaria, Berlin, North-Rhine Westphalia, Lower Saxony and Saxony as the
focus for our research.” This choice has resulted in the examination of more
than 400 titles bearing either short passages or longer chapters specifically
related to Israel.

For Germans, this encompassing view of the
German education system is providing useful demographical information. In
places like Berlin, where there are many immigrants from Muslim countries, cultural
and political factors lead to unique educational policies, and different
teaching methods and materials are in use. Discrepancies in how Israel is
portrayed reflect underlying cultural evolution, revealing lingering
misconceptions about the past.

Already, Sadowski has observed some general
trends. “Israel is mainly depicted in the context of the Middle East conflict,”
he says. “Only German geography textbooks discuss other topics relating to
Israel, like agriculture, technological achievements, water use, and tourism.
When Israel is presented in the context of the Middle East conflict, we find
texts positively depicting the Israeli position, but also textbooks with
increasingly negative stances towards Israel. Most texts, however, try to draw
a balanced picture and to maintain neutrality.”

From the Israeli side, Kizel has not commented
extensively about his team’s early findings regarding Germany’s portrayal in
Israeli textbooks. “There have been significant changes in the way that
schoolbooks are written both in the linguistic context and in their choice of
subject matter,” he says, emphasizing that it is still too early to draw any
conclusions about the textbooks his team is reviewing.

The next phase of the project calls for the
completion of research in 2014 and the development of bilateral recommendations
for the improvement of textbooks.

“Proposals will be
presented in 2015 in celebration of 50 years of diplomatic relations between
both countries,” Sadowski says.

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